Before the Storm
by cynicallypink
Summary: A talk between the guardians who know Yuna, and each other, the best.


Author's note: Set at the inn on the Thunder Plains. 

Before the Storm

"Hey, Lu! You busy?" he calls through the door. He never got the hang of knocking. Not that I have any room to talk - I didn't learn either, until I'd been away from Besaid. 

"Yes," I call back, without looking up. "But come in." 

"Okay," he says, over the creak of the door. "Hey, your hair!" 

It's a mess, half-unravelled and halfway down my back. I'm seated at the vanity, working carefully at undoing one braid along my scalp. Maintenance is nothing short of a nightmare, but I hate to cut it and this style does keep it out of my way. 

"Yeah, doesn't she look pretty with it loose?" Rikku pipes up. The summoner gets privacy, but guardians have to share. And now I have another girl to share with. I suppose it it's a good thing that she's feeling better now. It's better than watching her cower and scream, at any rate. "I'm trying to convince her to keep it like that. Tell her she looks pretty, Wakka." 

"Nah. She'd hit me." 

"I might." Probably not, but I'm not going to argue. 

"Besides, looks good in the braids. She been wearin' it like that since... when? You were fourteen, fifteen?" 

"I came back in the spring. I was still fourteen." Training in Luca. There were no black mages in Besaid, and my talents couldn't go undeveloped, they said. I'd only been four when I started making my dolls follow me around. I don't know why the priests decided, from that, that I should be a black mage - it's a different talent than I use in my magic, though I do tend to focus through the dolls. 

"Picked up braidin' with all those other big-city ways." 

"Like knocking," I say, with a sage nod. "I'm completely citified." 

She grins, stands up in one smooth movement. "I'll just leave you two alone," she says, convincing me further that there's some sort of conspiracy. I immediately search Wakka's face for signs of complicity. Of course she takes that as significant eye contact, and she darts out, trailing giggles. I'm so lucky that she's over her fright for the moment. 

"Wonder what that's about," he mumbles, rubbing the back of his head. 

"I think she fancies herself a matchmaker." Her, and Tidus. I'd been wondering about that ever since he spoke to me at the Farplane, had even entertained the thought that if Wakka said something to him. A complication we don't need right now, if so. But I doubted it even at the time, and more so when I see the puzzlement on his face. 

"Huh. You think? I figured she just liked you." 

The glare I shoot him should, by rights, melt steel. He actually backs away half a step, holding his hands up wardingly. "I don't mean like that! I mean she looks up to you, ya? Like Yuna when she was little." Before she decided to be a summoner, and started behaving like one. Back when she still laughed a lot, and teased me. And ran around in Wakka's old trousers. And tried to coerce me into deciding which of the boys I'd rather marry. We both know what he means, both remember her; the timid girl who stepped off the boat, clinging to the Ronso's hand, and her gradual thaw, the laughing child she used to be. "Lot like Yuna," he adds, almost under his breath. I wonder if he's noticed a physical resemblance. I hope not. I don't want to explain that to him. 

"You may have a point there," I say, trying to lighten the mood. "She actually volunteered to help with the braiding once I've washed my hair." 

"I take it back. She's crazy in love with you. She'd have to be." 

I allow myself a rare smile at that, and he beams. "I think she just doesn't know what's involved," I say, and he moves over, flops down on the bed. "Testing it for me?" 

"Yeah. Looks good enough. Better than mine. Hey, you wanna trade? That Tidus, he kicks. I should get a good mattress to make up for it." 

"You're still doubling up?" 

"We gonna share with Kimahri? He takes up a whole bed." 

"I'd have thought he'd sleep standing up, or something." He likes to be away from the rest of us on the trail, and he doesn't carry a bedroll. "You could have said something, Wakka. I'll speak to Sir Auron and ask if he'd share a double with Kimahri." Sir Auron gets his own room. Partly, of course, because we're all a little bit in awe of him, and partly because we learned while camping that he snores like a Ronso. 

"Ah, don't do that. It's fine, honest." 

"I'm sure we can afford another room, if there's a vacancy." Summoners and their guardians never lack for much. "I know I don't appreciate it when I have to share the bed with Rikku." 

"Her too, ah?" he says, and I just nod. "It's these young kids, all that energy," he continues. "Can't be still no matter what." 

We're actually old enough to think of them as kids. It's a fresh realization to me, and a sad one. Tidus is the same age as Yuna. I dart a sideways glance at him through a fall of hair. He's propped himself up on his elbows, but he doesn't look gloomy, so I try not to show it myself. "You wouldn't know about that. A dignified, settled elderly gentleman like yourself." 

"Hey! In a month I be the same age as you!" he protests, and I hide another smile. 

"Only for seven months more." 

"That's good enough!" 

An argument about our ages would be pointless - it's taking me back to childhood even now. "Wakka, is something bothering you?" 

"Why you think that?" he asks, guardedly. Yes, something is bothering him. 

"Because you just avoided the question. And I can't remember the last time you came to my room for a talk. I've had to seek you out the whole trip." 

"Just had a lot on my mind, you know?" 

I should ask if it snapped under the weight. I should tease him, and he'd groan and hit his forehead and ask "why you gotta be so cold," but instead I just say, "I know." 

He's silent, long enough for me to finish one row of braid and start on the next. Finally, he speaks, so quietly I'm almost not certain I've heard him correctly. "I caught Tidus in Yuna's room." 

"Oh," I say, without thinking. She's in love with him; it's not hard to tell if you know her. I would imagine Wakka's guessed as well, though we've never discussed it. My first assumption is that there's more of a relationship than I'd suspected, which might explain her behavior earlier today. If she plans to marry Seymour, and Tidus were trying to talk her out of it... "Was she with him?" 

"She just come out lookin' upset." 

_Oh, no._ "Did he say anything to her? Do you know?" I don't think it occurred to either of us that he might have done something to hurt her. I don't think I even considered it. Not because I have such a high opinion of him, although it is hard to think ill of someone who looks like Chappu. But just because she's Yuna, and who could try to harm her? 

"I don' think so. He just kinda squawked." 

"You're only supposed to torture him enough to make him talk, Wakka! Honestly," I huff, something that might be a joke if I weren't worried. 

"I know, I know," he agrees, mock-penitent. "I think it's okay, though. Don' think he said anything much, an' you know Yuna. He couldn't change her mind if he tried." Wakka had tried, had argued with her when she announced she would be a summoner; then he'd turned the anger on me. For weeks before she actually began the Cloister of Trials, he and I fought constantly. He thought that by agreeing to be her guardian, I was encouraging her, that I shouldn't give her any support at all. He'd thought she might give up. 

"Well, that's true," I say, but softly. In his way, he's just admitted I was right all along, that there was nothing any of us could have done to stop her. 

"We gotta tell him, Lu." 

"I know." I just feel so tired when I think of it. "I tried, Wakka. At Kilika, just before the sending— he was asking his stupid questions, and I tried—" 

"I know," he says. Quietly. I hear the creaking of the bed, but I don't look up. Though it's blurry, I see his bright shape in the mirror, feel his arms around me, the warmth of his skin against my back. I still don't look up, but after a time I touch his arm. "I can't do it either," he adds, and from the muffled sound of his voice I can tell his face is pressed into my hair. "Haven't even tried yet." 

"It's your turn, then," I say, softly, but I don't really mean it. Tidus has to know, but I know none of us can talk about it. No one talks about it. 


End file.
